PURPLE POND ....

Purple pond  90 x 90 cm   oil/canvas

 I am pleased that I finallyI finished this painting last week and I will be taking it to the framers. 

THE CHARCOAL BURNER.....

Adam  works as a thatcher, but  for several years has been a charcoal burner in the Dorset woods.

Although I began drawing him in red chalk  that didnt work and I suddenly thought of the obvious - charcoal.....!    I hope he comes back for another session or two,  I may do a painting if we have time

It is a long time since I have done any portraits - too long.  If anyone reading this would like to come and pose please get in touch- we can negotiate over terms.

THE MINSTER GALLERY Contemporary Art. Winchester

I am showing four paintings  here  - it is a gallery just opposite the Minster, and well worth a visit.

Flowery Border with Photinia    oil/canvas   70 x 79 cm

this is one of many paintings I have made  of this border, in this garden in the heart of some of the most beautiful familiar countryside where I have lived and painted for 35 years......

Yellow Flags and Ragged Robin   oil/canvas  70 x 70 cm 

When I was doing this painting - in front of the pond, somehow a different approach forced itself upon me.    .....    it is not how I usually paint!   That's what happens .....

Catherine's Vase III        36 x 34"   oil/board   

Catherine's Vase IV  24 x 24 cm  oil/board

These chrysanthemums in a beautiful vase that was made by Catherine Vannier - a french potter who exhibited with me at the Alpha House Gallery in Sherborne Dorset .  Alpha House was a fabulous gallery  started by my very good friend the painter Tony Birks-Hay (www.tonybirks.co.uk) but sadly it is now closed.   Times change......

AlEXANDER GALLERY 40TH BIRTHDAY EXHIBITION

The Alexander Gallery has several of my paintings.  This is just a selection,  Peter Slade is particularly fond of my ponds and he also has some Flower Paintings....

    Pond and Dillweed and Catmint    oil/linen     80 x 80

   Pond and Viper's Bugloss      oil/linen      80 x 80 cm

                      Apple Tree Pond I     oil/canvas    32 x 24"

                                 My easel and canvas in the pond!


You can see the dangers of painting on the spot .....    fortunately all was well ....  it was the wind that had blown it over!  

MY WORK IN LONDON, BRISTOL & WINCHESTER

I am currently taking part in three mixed exhibitions - all ending fairly soon....  If you do not live in Dorset the following paintings are at the RUSSELL GALLERY     www.russell-gallery.com  
(see next posts for the other galleries)  gallery re opens 11 Jan.

    The Vegetable garden and Coriander oil/canvas  24 x 36"    

   Red Crab Apples  oil/canvas  28 x 30"  

    Red Crab Apples II   10 x 11"  oil/board    SOLD



  Flowers and red field   17 x 21cm   oil/board

THE BEATLES WHITE ALBUM....

Snowy Copse...if you came this way  oil/canvas  80 x 110cm  


I prefer to work standing up ....  some how sitting to paint does not suit me, the energy is wrong.  In fact I very often listen to music - as opposed to dear old radio 4- and today I listened to the Beatles White Album that my friend Frances gave me for Christmas...    remember Blackbird and Why dont we do it in the road .... and others I have forgotten again.....!

SNOWY COPPICE .... If you came this way....

       If you came this way  oil/canvas  80 x 110cm   ....  unfinished .....

My husband, Robert, always says, when he sees a new painting, which I think of as half finished ....  or at least arrived at a point where I am maybe beginning to know where I am or what to do ...he  says " dont do anymore ...  dont overdo it "     he is often right ...   


Painting is such a weird and magical  thing ...  I love the ambiguity and endless possibility of it.   One mark,  ten minutes painting can ruin it or make it...   or the pause for a cup of tea change my perception of what is going on.    That is why I love T.S Elliott.....  one of my favorite bits  from Little Gidding ...  and of course the title of the painting...  not snowy coppice but


              If you came this way,
Taking the route you would be likely to take
From the place you would be likely to come from,
If you came this way in may time, you would find the hedges
White again, in May, with voluptuary sweetness.
It would be the same at the end of the journey,
If you came at night like a broken king,
If you came by day not knowing what you came for,
It would be the same, when you leave the rough road
And turn behind the pig-sty to the dull facade
And the tombstone. And what you thought you came for
Is only a shell, a husk of meaning
From which the purpose breaks only when it is fulfilled
If at all. Either you had no purpose
Or the purpose is beyond the end you figured
And is altered in fulfilment. 


This is (one of ) the most magical heartwarming deeply felt pieces of poetry I know.   ....    I give thanks for it.   For the person who introduced me to it, for the education which enabled me to enjoy it, for the people I can share it with.   Rock on!

SOL'S HILL in the snow

  

Sol's Hill in the Snow     80 x 80cm oil on canvas (2nd stage)

I didnt manage to do as much as I intended yesterday -  will finish it today I hope.    I am pleased with this painting - though it has developed in a way I had not intended - more primitive and playful ....  but I like that.  I have learnt to allow the unexpected to happen and not try and control the way things go...   to  paint instinctively....  but it isnt always easy!  I will write more about this in future blogs.....

Happy New Year!

NAMING PAINTINGS is difficult .......

                 Solomon's hill iCCRCn snow 80 x 80 cm unfinished      

This  is the painting I began yesterday, in the studio from a photograph I took in the snow last week.   I walk most days in the landscape around where we live, with my dog, Solomon. My friend Caroline Whalley has named the hill after him....  


Naming paintings is difficult.....  because I tend to paint things in series ....  naming them 'Snow Painting I'  - or ' Snow Painting IX'   helps no one to identify them.  sometimes I name them after the music I was listening and dancing to ...  
like Creedence Clearwater  120 x 120 m....  see below...  

SNOW PAINTINGS 2010

Trees in snow                                                                          oil/canvas    24 x 36"

    White tree in snow                                                                           oil/canvas 80 x 110cm


Photographs of paintings in their not-quite-finished state....

SNOW POETRY.....

Today I have added paintings about the snow.   The first two have been painted during the current snowy weather.   Everything looks so beautiful and the first morning, after I had fed the birds the dog and I went out to do our walk...   


The excitement I felt at the sight of the familiar landscape transformed I remembered Colerdige's Frost at Midnight....   and am once again grateful that I was at school when this was what one learned.....

"The frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind.  The owlet's cry

Came loud--and hark, again! Loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

'Tis calm indeed! So calm, that it disturbs

And vexes meditation with its strange

And extreme silentness.  Sea, hill, and wood,

This populous village!  Sea, and hill, and wood,

With all the numberless goings-on of life,

Inaudible as dreams! ......."

I find I read poetry more and more ....   and being new to blogging feel that a short extract is better than reproducing Coleridge's poem in full.....

SNOW PAINTINGS from previous years

Shaftesbury in the Snow   oil/board  30 x 30cm 1992  from Frenchmill Lane, where I lived for 30 years

Hawkcombe in the Snow  oil/board 28 x 35cm  2009 SOLD

Sue and the sheep  oil/board 28 x 35 cm 2009  SOLD

LAST PAINTINGS of 2010 ...... and all that beautiful snow....

                                      White tree in the snow    oil/canvas  80 x 110cm   (unfinished state)

Trees in the snow         oil/canvas 24 x 36"  (unfinished state)

THREE WINTER PONDS .... from photographs and my imagination..

Winter Pond II  80 x 80 cm oil/canvas 

unfinished state

Skywater 1 x 1m oil/canvas

Winter Pond and clouds 24 x36" unfinished state

Can you tell which is which?     I dont know whether I shall paint more ponds....  I think it is more than likely ....   finding subject matter that inspires and delights is really important and the two ponds we have made here in the past three years have so far been the subject of more than 20 paintings ... I have rather lost count, not all of them have worked, most have been painted in the summer with me  standing in front of the pond in question and all my stuff in a wheel barrow ...  (more pictures in later posts) ... the first and last are  from a photograph - and that is different, not better or worse the middle one I invented ...  more of this anon....!   The apples are painted from life because that is how it happened.

AUTUMN HARVEST ....More paintings from the last few months ....

Cooking Apples  oil/canvas 26 x 26"

View at my studio

Apples II 22 x 24" oil/canvas

View at my home studio

Yellow Crab Apples 38 x 32" oil/flax

View at my home studio

Red Crab Apples II 10 x 11"  SOLD

The Russell Gallery, Putney, SW15

Michealmas Daisies, Springhead  1 x 1m. oil/canvas

Alexander Gallery, Clifton, Bristol.

Winter Pond I

Winter Pond I  24 x 36" oil on canvas  SOLD
This is a painting I did last winter of one of the ponds in our garden, it is one of a series ....   A lot more paintings in the next post.

Red Crab Apples I

Red Crab Apples,  oil on canvas,  28 x 30"   


This is the first in a series of paintings that I have done this autumn. This particular painting is on show at the Russell Gallery, 12 Lower Richmond Rd.   SW15 1JP.  Do go and have a look.  More news of the other shows I am participating in this winter in the next blog ....